This essay has been anonymously peer-reviewed by a referee selected by the editors. Submitted: 2015-01-29; Accepted: 2015-02-03; Published: 2015-02-09.

The paper first investigates the rules governing the fixed-term employment relationships of teaching staff and administrative, technical and auxiliary staff of schools - as applied in different ways by national courts - and then deals with the questions about the compatibility of that legislation with Council Directive 1999/70/EC on Fixed-term contracts referred to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunale di Napoli and the Corte Costituzionale. Furthermore the A. analyses the ECJ judgment Mascolo - with which the ECJ has answered to the referring courts that the actual application of the legislation at issue in the main proceedings leads, in practice, to misuse of successive fixed-term employment contracts in breach of clause 5.1 of the Directive - trying at last to draft some possible outcomes of the ECJ case-law at the national level.